was received in Germany as a claim for the most excessive annexations of pure German territory. The New Statesman (London), of July 28, explained it as mere insular ignorance of the map of Europe:

Sir Edward Carson was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, of which learned institution he has now indeed been Parliamentary representative for some seventeen years. Doubtless he early acquired that disdain for geography which most universities inculcate. There ought, however, to be a limit to the published and advertised ignorance of statesmen, and Sir Edward Carson passed it when he advised the German armies to retire behind the Rhine, as a preliminary to negotiations for peace. If he was not under the impression that the Rhine constituted the German frontier, what impression was he under? Did he imagine that the United States as one of the belligerents would agree, by way of exemplifying the great principle for which we are fighting, to the forcible transfer of the Rhine province and the Bavarian Palatinate from a defeated Germany to a victorious France? Perhaps he was making one of his grim jokes. But we have enough of grim jokes at the moment."

4.

British Discussion of Reichstag Resolution. If the Chancellor's speech brought disappointment to those desiring peace, the passage of the Reichstag Resolution brought cheer. In the British Parliament the evening of July 26 was devoted to debate on a resolution 1 brought in by Ramsay MacDonald,

1

1 The resolution itself covered three points:

(1) That "this country has stood throughout" for principles embodied in the Reichstag statement that, "putting aside the thought of acquisition of territory by force, the Reichstag is striving for a peace of understanding and lasting reconciliation of nations, that with such a peace political, economic and financial usurpation are incompatible and that the Reichstag repudiates all plans which

in support of the Reichstag Resolution. MacDonald, Trevelyan, Snowden, Ponsonby, Outhwaite, Lees-Smith, Buxton, spoke in favor, Asquith, Bonar Law and two labor members against it. The resolution was lost by a vote of 148 to 21, but it brought out some interesting indications of changing opinion.1

Asquith laid stress on the powerlessness of the Reichstag and belittled the importance of the Resolution. He was glad a conference of the Allies to consider peace terms was to be held in the early autumn in Paris, "I understand at the invitation of the Russian Government." With Russia no longer an autocracy, and the accession of America, to suppose that the Allies will fight for imperialist and annexationist aims is a nightmare. This means the Allies do not aim at "selfish schemes of territorial aggrandizement," it means they do not aim at "the destruction or even at the permanent mutilation and crippling of the German and Austrian peoples." But neither will they be satisfied with the precarious status quo ante bellum, leaving countries like Belgium, Serbia, Greece, at the mercy of dynastic intrigue under menace of military coercion.

The best hope of peace, he said, is open avowal and disavowal of objects sought, and "I for my part welcome the fullest use of all the opportunities which present themselves for the interchange of views between the representatives of the great democracies." aim at the economic isolation and tying down of nations after the war;

(2) An appeal "to the Government in conjunction with the Allies to restate their peace terms accordingly:"

(3) The Allies should accept the Russian proposal that the forthcoming allied conference on war-aims shall comprise representatives of the peoples and not solely spokesmen of the Governments. 1 As Asquith made the vote a test of "whether there is any halting in our determination or any doubt of our ability" to achieve our great ends, the vote was not on the merits of the question involved in the resolution.

Bonar Law asked why Germany had never stated her aims in any definite shape. "Ours may have gone too far, but at all events we had the courage to state them before the world." The phrase here italicized is an important admission from Mr. Bonar Law.

Cavendish-Bentinck, Unionist, thought a restatement of Allied war-aims would do good, and ascribed the move of opinion in Germany toward peace as largely due to LloydGeorge's Glasgow speech.

Brigadier-General Page Croft, Unionist, said that it was the duty of Allied diplomacy to make it clear to Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria that we were prepared to consider the question of where we stood in relation to them in a different light.

Mr. Snowden said that with regard to the general question of compensation outside of Belgium, he thought that the proposal which had been made by the Russians was, perhaps, the best way of dealing with the matter, and that was that a general fund to which each of the belligerents should contribute should be created, and distributed by some international commission in proportion to the amount of damage which had been ascertained, and that each of the belligerent nations should contribute to the fund in proportion to its ascertained responsibility for that damage.

Mr. Lees-Smith asked if the principle of no annexation applied to the German colonies and said, "It would be a disgrace if this country, which entered the war with justice on its lips, should come out of it with a million square miles added to its empire. Nothing had done so much to consolidate the German people and strengthen German militarism as the announcement of a commercial boycott and economic war, and if the Government persisted in their policy it was heading straight for another war. No nation would ever submit to being subject to a commercial boycott. If it was desirable to establish democracy in Germany, it must depend largely on the terms of peace, and it must be a peace that would show to the German people that militarism was not necessary for their security or legitimate rights.”